Sunday 4 August 2013

Startup Weekend Autumn 2013 edition team set up

It has been a few months since we had a successful spring edition of Startup Weekend in Hong Kong. Successful because there was a good number of attendees, a brilliant venue (m21.hk), good interest and support from the Hong Kong startup community, interest and active participation by the Hong Kong Government's CIO department.

And where would we have been without the fantastic support of sponsors by helping us with cash to buy food and cover some other costs as well as prizes for some of the winning teams. Interesting to see was that some startups and even teams that were born at Startup Weekend contributed to the event.

All this put together by a bunch of selfless volunteers that have a soft spot for beginning or potential entrepreneurs. Planning an event like this takes around 3 months during which the teams look for sponsors, venue, mentors and judges and work on the operations for the weekend. And of course a fair bit of time goes into marketing to potential participants. We have been blessed with a good network of supporters and supporting organisations that do spread the love

Last week we kicked off the preparations for the upcoming editions. It is really good to see the energy and enthusiasm with which the volunteers are running around building the next event. The event is expected to take place in the last weekend of October or first weekend of November. This would allow the winning team to participate in the Global Startup Battle.

WHAT WE NEED
For now the team is looking for a venue that can host 100-120 people working on teams. In order for them to work they would need wifi and sufficient electricity plugs. Sponsors for food, t-shirts and prizes and important as well.. mentors and judges! 

Drop me an email if you have any suggestions for those.


TOOLS
As everyone has a day job (whether this work or studying), it is often a virtual team approach. In order to keep things moving we use a number of tools.

ASANA - task management
EVERNOTE - sharing of information
GOOGLE DRIVE and DOCS - keeping track of documents and
DROPBOX - to share files amongst the team

I am excited and curious what the team can pull off this round..so far we have gone better and better.